


Overkill

by Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Crack, Gen, Humor, Minor Injuries, Shotgun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 15:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15246540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw/pseuds/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw
Summary: In which Tali experiments with her weapon loadout to interesting effect.





	Overkill

“--lucky you weren’t more seriously injured,” Dr. Chakwas clucked. “As it is, I have your shoulder immobilized.” 

“What happened,” Tali asked, her mouth dry, her head pounding. She moistened her lips with her tongues and closed her eyes against the bright lights of the medbay.

“Ah, keep those eyes open. Unless I miss my guess, you have a concussion to go with that dislocated shoulder.”

“What was it? Cerberus? Reapers?”

A look of concern filled Chakwas’s face as she dictated “subject suffers short-term memory loss” to her recorder. “Tell me, what is the last thing you remember?”

“Well, I was modding my shotgun to fight husks…”

Earlier...

“Whoa, Sparks, you sure about that?” James cast an uncertain eye over Tali’s setup. 

“I want something that can take care of a husk in one shot, no questions asked,” she explained.

“Which is why you took a Claymore and screwed that high-velocity barrel Lola picked up on the top?” he confirmed.

“And why I tightened up the smart choke as far as it’ll go--the further away those things and their hands stay away from me, the better.” She shuddered. Her drones could only do so much to keep those grabbing, snatching arms away from the more delicate components of her suit.

“I, uh, guess that makes sense. But that’s a lot of gun for--”

“What, for a girl?” Tali snapped. 

For someone who weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet, he thought. “Easy, Sparks. At least give your new rig a test run before you throw it in the deep end.” Even he would think twice about using that much firepower.

She had consented to this, setting up a dummy wearing some captured Cerberus armor at one end of the cargo bay while he surreptitiously (as surreptitiously as a six-two behemoth could manage) stacked up some fairly soft, durable odds and ends behind her. “Setting Chatika to record.”

“Are you sure about that?” James bit his tongue as she whirled to face him. 

“Keelah, James, stop second-guessing me. We need to record this for science.”

“Okay, okay.” He backed off as she leveled the gun at the Cerberus dummy. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he muttered, but she had already dampened her audio inputs. 

“Three, two, one…” She counted.

Bang!

Later...

Tali grimaced as she watched herself fly backwards, propelled by the gun’s immense recoil, focused by her adjustments to the choke and intensified by the barrel she had equipped. Just as well the Claymore only chambered a single round. “Well, at least it did a number on that captured armor.”

“Tali, it nearly blew a hole out of the side of the cargo bay,” James informed her. He lowered his voice. “I love it, by the way. And, uh, I modded a plasma shotgun for you.”

“You’re a good friend, Vega,” Tali replied groggily, and patted him on the shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, but seriously, how does Tali fire a claymore in-game? It's made for a krogan, and okay, Shepard can receive special training to use it after her cybernetics. But nobody else can in ME2. Now all of a sudden the Reapers show up and everybody goes 'welp, I guess we can give the quarian a gun that weighs more than she does'? Eh. At least Tali and James can be shotgun bros.


End file.
